Cali 'cation 2012: Days 8 & 9 – Traveling the PCH, Zuma, Star Sightings & Laguna Beach

VM: Our travels have kept us so busy we haven’t even had time to share our thoughts and pictures. We’re now in San Diego and will try to catch up.

Saying goodbye to our cute inn in Santa Barbara.

Our girls' road trip took us from Santa Barbara just south to Carpinteria to Rincon Surf Shop (yes, we've been to surf shops EVERYWHERE.) Outside of the store, we met Buddy, a very lovable Corgi who had just moved to the area from Maui (yes, he has a good life!)

Buddy was a mush much like our Millie.

We took the scenic way down via Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. We were struck by the MANY RVs who park on the side of the road and even hoist flags. I guess they're staying awhile to enjoy the beauty that's still affordable.

We made a stop at the famed Zuma Beach. True to Baywatch lore, the lifeguards were fairly hunky. I was expecting to see Pamela Anderson or David Hasselhoff at any moment...

We went down the road to Malibu Country Mart for lunch and had a bonified star sighting and a semi-sighting. We DEFINITELY saw Andie MacDowell shopping in one of the cute shops. If you know who she is, well, you're probably in my demo. The girls were not impressed, but I was. She was just as beautiful in person as she is on the magazine pages, TV or movies. For those of you who aren't sure who she is, I've googled a reference pic for you.

Our second "star" sighting was a bit more dubious. We are fairly certain we saw Tori Spelling's husband, Dean McDermott, driving out behind us and next to us on the PCH. HM pretended she was paparazzi & snapped pics of him as we drove along side of him. By the way he kept checking himself out in the mirror and casually driving his Mercedes, we decided it could indeed be him. You decide for yourself....

Beach beauties at Zuma Beach.

Sand fight in Malibu.

HM & KG took the plunge.

HM as paparazzi....

Is it or isn't it Dean McDermott????

Our journey to Laguna via the PCH took us to Santa Monica where the girls spotted the famed pier that we see in TV shows. Girls begged to stop and we joined the throngs of tourists hitting the oceanside midway. We even tried to hear our fortune from Zoltar but I was disappointed to see he was nothing like the one in BIG and the girls were even more disappointed that they couldn't understand not a word he said NOR his printed fortune (I'm thinking it was translated from Greek or something cause it truly made absolutely no sense) prompting EM to say, "this is worse than a fortune cookie!"

Is this fun!?!?

Our only fail of the journey was from Santa Monica to Laguna. I wrongly assumed the journey would be much like the Malibu portion of the PCH. For the record, it is not. It is stop & go the whole way down & by no means picturesque. We finally made it to Laguna late in the evening, but at least we were there safely.

On Saturday morning we headed down to check out the town which pretty much involved visiting every surf store we could find.

Flowers everywhere, with dedicated
gardeners.

In the p.m., the girls had a 2-hour surf lesson with Soul Surfer, a Christian surfing school. We had two lovely instructors who took the girls down to the beach to the "surf" area & worked with them. While not big, the Laguna waves definitely packed a punch, but all the girls held their own & had a good time. I enjoyed my role as mamarazzi & chief people-watcher. Laguna is definitely full of beautiful people. Lots of lean surfing bodies who clearly are passing up the cerveza. :-)

Taylor from the Housewives
was hangin' in Laguna

My last semi-"star" sighting was in Laguna. For those of you who are like me, and admit to watching reality TV, I spotted Taylor from the Beverly Hills Housewives heading down to the beach with a man (no cameras in tow). Assuming it might be a new beau. Again, if you need a reference pic -- here you go.

Couldn't resist this quintessential Laguna pic -- note the
signs behind the VW.

HM: Laguna Beach was so incredibly beautiful. But before I start there, let's go back to Malibu. All I can say, is there were a lot of hot lifeguards and guys hanging out. The surf was so big, but KG and I had fun trying to body surf.

We hit every surf store in the area.

Now back to Laguna. We hit Rip Curl and a few local surf shops including one that was owned by the president of Billabong (VM NOTE: a big surf company) except he didn't want to name it Billabong so he named it after a breaker in Laguna, Second Reef Surf Shop.

Surfing was amazing. Biggest waves I've ever surfed in my life.

San Diego is beautiful, but really, all of Cali is.

Soul Surfer was a great spot.

EM: I had a lot of fun on the Santa Monica Pier. I rode the roller coaster and it was really fun. We all chanted "again! again! again!" and the guy let us go twice. I liked our house in Laguna, but the problem was that the woman who we rented from got confused so the maid hadn't made our beds. So mom made the beds cause we were really tired.

I had fun surfing in Laguna. My person who helped me, Preston, helped me work on my pop-ups. He was very nice.

We got to San Diego. I love where we're staying.